A cardboard case for greener computer building

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The second ever Green Gadgets Conference is happening in New York on February 27th. So far the part of the conference that has gotten the most buzz is a design competition, the winner of which will be announced at the event. I actually attended the event last year (and will be attending this year) and we covered one of the contest’s submissions already, a printer that uses coffee grounds in place of ink.

Right now there are a number of submissions on the site, but web users will vote that list down to ten. The final winner will be chosen from those ten on the 27th. Right now the concept that has taken an early lead is known as “Recompute“. As you can probably tell from the picture, it’s a computer case made from cardboard. And yes, the concept is actually a working model.

Rather than use steel and plastic like typical computer case, this one is all recyclable cardboard, making for a case that is more environmentally friendly than ever before possible. Additionally, the construction methods for the case (die cutting, gluing, printing, and electronic assembly) are all described as low-impact processes. The case can be disassembled without any tools making for easier recycling of the internal components.

Little was said about the parts used inside the computer, available cooling (aside from airflow through the corrugation), and other technical aspects. We can guess that it’s probably not anything too fancy, based on the lack of a video card and the use of a PS/2 connection for the keyboard. There does appear to be a pop-out section for expansion cards though, so it does have some potential. The internal diagram shows a single 2.5-inch disk, a Micro-ATX motherboard, and some Kingston HyperX memory, but it’s not clear what processor was used. Regardless, this is just a prototype, and it seems like any Micro-ATX system that does not need much cooling would work.

{ad}From a design standpoint, the case must be pretty secure because it appears that it can work upright as well as horizontally so there must some way that the motherboard will be held to the bottom of the case, though the description states that “no one component is physically tied to Recompute”. Dust build up could be a serious problem, as would fatigue in the cardboard over time, but overall it’s a smart idea.

Speak Your Mind

Rich

I’ll say the same thing I said on another site this morning. This is completely lame! Moddders and PC enthusiasts have been doing cardboard cases for years now. He could have at least added some degin element to the case. As it site you’d be better off a lot greener to use the dang box the mobo came in. Now this case also featured on Core 77 http://www.core77.com/greenergadgets/entry.php?projectid=35 is a decent idea. At leas that thing has some desgin wor done to it

SeaMonkey31

Not sure how much I want a computer case made out of highly flammable materials. Normally electricity+heat+flammable things=BAD

rich- it think the point was opening the door for mass production. So the modder thing is cool, but this could supposedly work in on a larger scale.

seamonkey- nothing in a computer gets normally hot enough to make paper ignite (451 deg F… at least from what I hear). It is possible that there could be sparks but probably not ever enough to ignite the case unless, say, the PSU blew up or something and I don’t think that happens enough to be a concern.